Einstein's Predictions Confirmed: Black Hole Distorts Spacetime Fabric

Astronomers have observed a star wobbling in its orbit around a supermassive black hole, providing evidence of Lense-Thirring precession, or frame dragging. This phenomenon, first predicted by Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity in 1915 and solidified by Josef Lense and Hans Thirring in 1918, occurs when a rapidly spinning black hole drags the fabric of spacetime with it.

The research focused on the tidal disruption event, or TDE, designated AT2020afhd, utilizing X-ray data from NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory and radio-wave observations from the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array.

The team observed rhythmic changes in X-ray and radio emissions from AT2020afhd, indicating that the accretion disk and the jets of plasma emitted by the black hole were wobbling in unison, with a periodicity of every 20 Earth days.

Cosimo Inserra from Cardiff University stated that these observations confirm predictions made over a century ago and enhance our understanding of how black holes interact with their environment, shedding light on the mechanics of TDEs and the nature of frame dragging.

This discovery not only validates long-standing theories in astrophysics but also provides a new method for studying the spin of black holes and their accretion processes.